Grover Park George's MS Access© Tip of the Day

Do Not Use "Lookup Fields" in Tables

What does it look like?

Newer versions of Access allow you to create "lookup fields" in your tables. For example, you have an sales transaction table which has a field to record the Product ID of Products sold in each order. The lookup field property allows you to create a combo box in that field which displays the product [i]name[/i].

Resist the temptation to use lookup fields. Most of the time, they are more trouble than they are worth and they can lead to number of problems, not the least of which is fostering bad table designs. Lookup tables themselves are very useful tools, but you should always store the foreign key from a lookup table in its "raw" form in the main table.

Feedback is welcome and appreciated. ghepworth@gpcdata.com